Mbeki refutes racism claims

2005-03-18 17:26

Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki took issue on Friday with former president FW de Klerk and two journalists on their assertions that minority rights in South Africa were being sidelined in favour of the majority.

Writing in the African National Congress' online publication, ANC Today, he said that, despite the ANC and the government's commitment to non-racism and equality, and the provisions of the constitution, new concerns had been raised about questions of non-racism and equality.

"At its most extreme, the argument that is being advanced is that the ANC and the government are as guilty of racism as was the apartheid regime," he said.

Mbeki quoted Rapport newspaper editor Tim du Plessis as having said, among other things: "South Africa's bright economy does paint a veneer of respectability over the current race farce being perpetrated in the name of transformation.

"It makes it less visible, but no less absurd than the bizarre social engineering used in the Verwoerd days to create a segregated society."

Spoke at Cape Town Press Club

Mbeki said these sentiments were echoed by Die Burger newspaper deputy editor Leopold Scholtz in another article, and De Klerk, evidently driven by the same concerns, expressed by Du Plessis and Scholtz, addressed the Cape Town Press Club on the subject.

"Instead of an approach that accommodates diversity, there is an increasing tendency to require minorities to conform to the ANC goal of (demographic) 'representivity'...

"In effect, the concept of across-the-board representivity is irreconcilable with the constitutional principle of cultural diversity."

Mbeki said if Du Plessis, Scholtz and De Klerk were correct in their assertions, it had to follow that the government's actions were unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

"Contrary to what our detractors have sought to convey, the reality is that the human rights architecture contained in our constitution, our country's fundamental law, specifically requires that we should redress the wrongs we inherited from our colonial and apartheid past," he said.

'Heal divisions of the past'

"In reality, the social transformation programmes we are implementing are not only consistent with our constitution, but are prescribed by the same constitution, to ensure that we recognise the injustices of our past, heal the divisions of the past, and promote the achievement of equality.

"In addition, and of great importance, that constitutional human rights architecture also requires of us that we should respect the principle contained in the constitutional preamble, which states that we 'Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity'.

"It requires that together, as a people, we should promote and develop peace, friendship, humanity, tolerance and national unity, involving all our people across the inherited divisions based on race, colour, culture, religion and so on."

A single example of the scandalous consequences of the legacy of the past was a recent study showing that, of all the engineers in South Africa, 90.99% were white and 4.77% African.

'Criminal waste of talent'

"What this means is that, because of the persisting impact of the legacy of the past, we continue to experience a criminal waste of the talents of the majority of our people, contrary to the principle contained in the constitutional preamble to 'improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person'."

All engineering skills in the country were in short supply.

Any action by the government to increase the numbers of skilled people and address the racial imbalance indicated by the figures would not in any way imply the "disempowerment of minorities" that De Klerk alleged was happening.

'Equitable empowerment of all South Africans'

"It is sad and unfortunate that opinion-makers such as FW de Klerk, Tim du Plessis and Leopold Scholtz seem to be completely blind to the imperative to address the equitable empowerment of all South Africans, bearing in mind the debilitating burden of our racist legacy.

"They seem totally blind to the basic requirement that to protect the rights and privileges of the Afrikaners, in particular, and the whites in general, they need to be champions of the rights of all other South African race, linguistic, cultural and religious communities, including the rights and obligations contained in the equality clause."

De Klerk might be right that the government should deliberately seek to engage the minority in the country.

Mbeki said: "This political and ideological minority is out of step with the black and white majority of our people, including the business community, which understands that it is in our common interest to take the necessary corrective steps to 'heal the divisions of the past'."

- SAPA